Homemade Chicken Soup Recipe

Poor Leslie is a little under the weather today. She woke up with a bit of a stuffy head and runny nose. I have an idea…Let’s make some homemade chicken soup to cheer her up and help get her back on her feet. Let’s also make it in a few minutes instead of a few hours.

Will it cure her? History seems to think so. The first recorded writing of chicken soup as a prescribed cure for the common cold was made by Persian physician Ali Sina Balkhi in the 10th century. Has modern science found any truth to this? Sort of.

In 2000 a study was conducted at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha and chicken soup was put to the test.

Using blood samples from volunteers, he showed that the chicken soup inhibited the movement of neutrophils, the most common type of white blood cell that defends against infection. Dr. Rennard theorizes that by inhibiting the migration of these infection-fighting cells in the body, chicken soup essentially helps reduce upper respiratory cold symptoms. (learn more)

Although it is not known whether the changes witnessed in the laboratory have a meaningful effect on people with cold symptoms, at the very least it is a healthy, nutrient filled, hydration boosting, good tasting, comfort food…and that’s good enough for us.

How to Make Chicken Soup

Chicken Soup that would make Ali Sina Balkhi be proud?

Homemade chicken noodle soup, one of the most basic of comfort foods. Generation after generation has passed this restorative recipe down and homemade chicken soup made in your kitchen with fresh vegetables on a cold winter day just can’t be beat. Let’s begin:

Step 1: Ingredient prep: Chop the Vegetables, Brown the chicken

Dice up all of the vegetables into various sizes of your liking.

Chop the vegetables

Next, heat 1 tablespoon of oil on medium heat and cook the chicken until browned on all sides, about 5 minutes. Remove the chicken and set it aside on a plate. We will be dicing it up while the veggies are cooking.

Step 2: Add the vegetables, rice and noodles

Add the rest of the ingredients

Add the other 1 tablespoon of oil and all of the vegetables (onions, carrots, celery) to the pot. Cook them for about 2 minutes stirring occasionally. While they are cooking now is a good time to dice up the chicken into small pieces. Now add the broth, bay leaf, parsley, peas, corn, salt, and pepper and scrape up any little stuck bits that may be at the bottom of the pan. Add the rice and noodles.

Step 3: Cook under pressure for 8 minutes

Return the chicken to the pressure cooker, lock the lid, and bring the pot to pressure on high heat. Once the pressure cooker has indicated that it is at pressure by releasing a steady steam, immediately reduce heat to the lowest level to maintain this pressure. Cook for 8 minutes.

Once the time is up carefully open the lid angled away from you, salt and pepper to taste, serve and be soothed.

Delicious homemade chicken soup

Do you or will you have some leftover turkey? Try substituting it for the chicken.

What do you think?
What is your favorite comfort food when you are feeling down?

Looking for more information on chicken soup and different chicken soup recipes?

Thanks for reading.

"I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate." ~Julia Child

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I made this soup tonight with my pressure cooker. It was delicious! I ended up adding a bit more liquid as I used 2 C. of the noodles. Instead of lime, I added lemon, which turned out just fine. It ended up fairly thick–just delicious!

I made this last night and I loved it. The only thing I had to change a bit was that it was pretty sweet and I like my chicken soup more tangy. I added more lime juice and a bit of vinegar. I don’t think it was your recipe that did it; I got fancy and put in a purple carrot.

Thanks for posting this! I googled “pressure cooker chicken soup” while at the grocery store & this came up. I needed soup as I’ve got a bad cold (or maybe something worse). A bowl of this soup was just what I needed! The lime is brilliant! Brightens the flavors very well! Thanks again!

Trying this tonight! One question….after cooking for 8 minutes, do you let the steam come down on it’s own? or do you bring the steam down immediately with water? or do you use the “release valve” to let out the steam slowly?
Thanks!

Hi, thanks so much for the recipe.
I have a question though, is water instead of chicken broth OK to use? Would it turn into the broth from chicken cooking in it? (I am just trying to avoid using the store bought broth, as there ususally are some kind of additives in it.) Would that require more time at all?
Thanks!

Thanks for sharing. I am trying to use my pressure cooker more. I used your recipe as a guideline for our chicken soup. I’ve never added lime before but since I didn’t have that we used lemon (as someone else in comments said) and it worked. I used water & chicken bouillon. I had about 2 cups of leftover rice that I used in this. All 7 of us liked this soup. I’ll be making this again in my pressure cooker.

This is the most confusing set of recipe steps I’ve read in a while. It would help if you had more steps and clearer instructions i.e “return the chick to the pressure cooker”?? when did it first go in? I’m assuming the initial browning happened in the pressure cooker?

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